


Oh,flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I have loved and lost.

by seasons_may_change



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Reichenbach Falls, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasons_may_change/pseuds/seasons_may_change
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She looks the way she'd always looked. Warm and vivacious, her eyes so dark and her lips so soft and her imperishable beauty still there. And all she ever says is this:</p><p>   "Is it here the place, where time becomes space?"</p><p> </p><p>   He never replies.</p><p> So, I've finally written my version for reichenbach fall, with reversed roles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit darker than usual for me, but it just kept spinning around my head for days. The title and the reference you'll read belongs to Pablo Neruda, and the poem is called "A Song Of Despair".  
> Hope you enjoy it!

   Something has changed. As he closes the door behind him and hangs his coat next to hers- _god, he really must put it away one of those days-_   there is something quite different in the brownstone. Yes, the silence is still almost oppressive, the blinds are still down and he can almost inhale the dust in the room and yet, he can discern a slight difference. The difference could be in himself though. It is the first day that he had managed to get out, to go get some fresh air. The first day that he got a sense of New York after... _it._ All those weeks and still he cannot find another way to address it.

***

   He was not even there when it happened. He was miles away, in their brownstone- _his brownstone_ , he corrected himself. It had been almost three months but he still couldn't call it "his". Ms Hudson had told him again and again that he should start with small and simple things like that, but, well, it was easier said than done.

   He was not even there when it happened, for, if he were, he may not be sitting in the dark lamenting now. If she hadn't secretly decided to confront Moriarty by herself, if she hadn't chosen to sacrifice her life to save him- _and what had he ever done in return?_ \- this may never have happened. He knew very well there was no point in contemplating about hypotheticals but still, he wished he could at least watch it. He wished he could see her die, so that his mind would not have to picture it in a different way every night. So that he could stop the screaming voices in his head, the angsty faces, the bloody arms. So that he could finally rest.

   On day two, Moriarty's body was washed off the shore. There were signs of struggle in her arms, bruises and cuts and, as Marcus describes it, he closes his eyes tight and tries to stop picturing the two women fighting with their bare hands in the air as they fell off the bridge. Vainly of course. Marcus tells him that teams are still scanning the river but, "hey, I don't think our hopes are too high." Watson stops being Watson that day; she is flesh and frozen, purple blood but nothing more. And, oh, how he remembers how they used to fight about the existence of the soul, how vehemently against it he used to be. Now, he wants to believe in it. He wants to believe that, when she drowned, little bits of herself emerged from the water and climbed up to the sky. He wants to believe that, when he'll be strong enough to go to his rooftop and watch the bees, he'll look up into the stary night and she'll be there; bits and bits, and those tiny bits will form a star.

   On day five, the endeavours of the rescue teams cease. Sherlock locks the front door, shuts the windows, pulls the blinds down and sits on the floor. She comes to him every night. She sits next to him and watches him cry. Just watches him. Watches him press his fingernails against his thighs until they bleed. Watches as he cuts himself with his razor and observes the blood streaming in his pale hands. She looks the way she'd always looked. Warm and vivacious, her eyes so dark and her lips so soft and her imperishable beauty still there. And all she ever says is this:

   " _Is it here the place, where time becomes space?"_

 _  
_    He never replies.

   On day ten, she is no longer his Watson. She is a shadow, a dark,obscure shadow he sees on the walls at night, a voice he can hear through the hall, a fragrance he can sense in the dusty air. The woman that had scared all his demons away had become a demon herself.

   On day thirty, he finds himself yearning for a heaven he'd never enter. He, who had never believed in any promised heaven in the sky. _They say that when you miss someone, they are probably feeling the same._ But, does Joan Watson _feel_ anymore? Does she look down, every now and then and watch him? Does she reach out her hand whenever he sheds a tear? Does she smile to him whenever he thinks of her?

   On day forty, she is gone. The rooms are empty, dark and painfully silent. All he can hear is his shuddering breath, all he can see is the reflection of himself in the mirror. He looks old. The big, black circles around his eyes denote it's been weeks since he last slept and the stubble on his cheeks that it's been weeks since he last cared about the way he looked.  
The bruises on his hands are still there, but she is not. The ghosts are long gone and, for the first time in his life he actually misses them.

   On day fifty, he misses the drugs. The way they smelled, the way they entered his body, the way they made his mind so blank, so lost and his body so disobedient. He feels as if the pores on his skin had opened up, longing to be kissed by the needles like they were used to. He misses her so much that for a moment he wishes he could end this. All this ordeal, this angst, this pain. It wouldn't be the first time that he'd try. He hates every minute of it; how when she died, she swallowed everything with her-time and space. Perhaps drugs can bring her back, he ponders. They can make her reappear, so that he can see her for one more time. So that he can use all of his brain power to memorise her. _No,_ he says to himself. _If not for you, don't do it for her._ He knows that suffering is obscure, abysmal and shares the nature of infinity, so drugs will help until they won't anymore. Then they won't be a solution, but a bigger, vaster problem.

   On day sixty, he finally discovers a way to bring her back.

   _"Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I have loved and lost,_

_I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you."  
_

He finds out that, when he's playing the violin, she appears. Not as the demon of his fantasy, but as the Watson of his dreams. As he plays his favourite piece, she gradually begins to form in front of his eyes. Her beautiful, lean hair resting on her shoulders, a few strands on her collarbone, her slender arms, her pale but ever so slightly bright skin, her deep, dark eyes that used to grasp his like a firm hand _. Oh, how he missed her._ He missed every single thing about her; the way she rolled her eyes whenever he'd act strangely, the way the muscles on her neck stiffened whenever she was angry, the way she arched an eyebrow whenever she didn't understand something he'd say, the way she looked at him, straight in the eyes, unafraid and determined.

   He writes elegies for her, and, when he plays them, she smiles. She smiles like there is no sadness in the earth, like her smile could outlast eternity. _Sad songs make Joan Watson happy, after all.  
_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I left it there, I'm not sure how I should continue.  
> The reference "is it here the place, where time becomes space" is from an opera by Wagner, Parsifal.(wonderful music, by the way).  
> There will be at least one more chapter, perhaps more. Please let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

    There's darkness all around him.

   _"I bring sorrow to those who love me."_

There's darkness all around him but, somehow, he's memorised it all. He knows that, as he trudges sluggishly across the hall, he has to close his eyes so that he doesn't see her purse and glasses on the table.

   _"It was during this sorrow that love came to me."_

 _  
_    He climbs up the stairs, watching his steps as the utter darkness surrounds him and heads into the living room.

   "Yes", he says to himself as he steps inside, eyes still shut. "Something _is_ different." He opens them, rummages through the room, and there it is. He doesn't have to take a closer look, he doesn't even have to turn on the lights to make sure- he _is_ sure. He is quite familiar with the obscure figure sitting on the armchair.

   " _Heaven is in my eyes!"_ the vague voice continues in the corners of his mind but, after all this time, he hardly minds.

   "Sherlock." the woman says in a clear, soft tone.

   "Oh my stars and gar.." he mutters and, for a moment, before he loses his consciousness and sprawls on the floor, he thinks he might actually be in heaven.

***

    " _Is everything around you just the blood and the mud?"_

His ears buzz and his eyes hurt, and, as he pries them open, he cannot tell if he regained consciousness because of the cloying perfume that the figure is swinging across his nostrils, or if the dulcet tone of his mind had somehow managed to bring him back.

   He jumps up haphazardly and looks at her _-_ or _it_ , he is not sure yet. He blinks his eyes twice, hoping that the form in front of him is merely a fabrication of his fantasy. But she is still there, eerily calm and contained.

   "No" he stammers. "You are dead. You are not-you _cannot_ be here. I..I didn't play the violin. I didn't summon you!"

   "Sherlock, it is me." she repeats and he covers his ears with his palms and shuts his eyes tight.

   "No, you don't say that. You've never said that." He halts as he feels a cold tear streaming down his cheek. "Please, just.. I was getting better. Mrs Hudson said I was!"

   "Sherlock. I am here."

   "No, stop it! You've never said that." he emmits. Then, he tries to recite the word's he'd been hearing from her the last three months. " _Is it here the place, where time becomes space,_ remember?" His voice is brittle and his breath heavier than ever.

   "I am alive, I am here, Sherlock." she whispers sullenly.

   "You drowned."

   "No, I didn't."

   He stops and feels chills running down his spine. He cannot see her clearly, he cannot see her lips, her eyes, her little nose, but he can hear her. He can hear her steady breath. _Demons don't breathe,_ _do they?_

   "You didn't drown?"  he asks after a long, stinging silence.

   "No. I faked my death. I had to."

   "You had to." he repeats incredulously.

   "Yes. Moriarty threatened to kill you, and the rest of my family after that. I had to."

   "Three months!! Why?"

   "I went to Europe, I.. had to hide from her lieutenants. I froze my accounts so that they couldn't track me down."

   "You.. how could you ever do this? I..wasn't learning how to live again, I was learning how to die! I almost sunk into drugs! I tried to kill myself! How could you?" he cries out and runs his fingers on his hair.

   "I believed in you, I believed that somehow you'd muddle through."

   "You believed in me? Well I didn't even believe _in myself!_ It was easy to believe in me, wasn't it? You were away!" he exclaims and can hear his voice break.

   "You think it was easy?" her voice is now brusque. "You think it was easy being afraid? Afraid they could be in the next corner? Afraid you'd be gone when I returned? I haven't slept for months!"

   He stops and tries to meet her eyes into the darkness.

   "Did you come to the funeral?"

   "No." she replies. "How was it?"

   "Nice. Quite morbid now that I think about it."

   She pauses. "Look. I don't expect you to forgive me-"

   "What would you do, hmm?" he interrupts her. "What would you do if I pulled this? Finding out that all this was an elaborate subterfuge?"

   The woman in front of him remains silent.

   "You know, it hurt. Every minute of it. It hurt waking up, it hurt trying to sleep, breathing, functioning. Looking at the mirror, looking at how I've become. Three months, and it felt like _three years!_ "

   "I am sorry. I am sorry for putting you through all this."

   "Well, it's not enough." Just.." he fumbles and rushes to the staircase.

***


	3. Chapter 3

   " _I am divine! I am oblivion!"_

   He lets the New York city air through his lungs.

   He's missed it all-its dimming lights, its incessant noise, its tall buildings, its familiar strangers.  The city beneath his feet is serene, still fast asleep. For a moment, it feels as if the whole New York city has just.. _stopped._

  Sherlock remembers how Watson didn't die all at once. How she was constantly drifting away, day by day. How her scent gradually began to fade away, how little pieces of her were dragged into oblivion like pins drawn to a magnet.

   The beatings of his heart are lost, but the rhythm of the city slowly begins to decoy his palpitations to a steadier, slower tempo. He sits on one of the chairs and looks up. He is overwhelmed by the twinkling spotlights adorning the sky, forming a thousand celestial constellations, real and imagined. And, somewhere in the middle, the luminous moon harmonises with the velvet darkness of the unfathomably infinite universe.

***

   He could not aprroximate how much time had gone by when she sat quietly next to him. The morning grew nigh though, for he could see vague shades of orange and pink where the city met the sky.

   "You liked baroque music." he says absent-mindedly after he let the silence stretch.

   She turns her head and looks at him.

   "You came to me whenever I played baroque." he explains.

   "Baroque?"

   "Music of the 17th century. Complex, soaring, obscure..beautiful."

   "What does it say about me?"

   "I haven't the foggiest, but I reckon, whatever it is, it is about _us."_

   She smiles, but he cannot discern it.

   "Where's Clyde?" she asks after a while.

   "Mrs. Hudson agreed to put him up. I.. couldn't take care of him." 

    "The worst part" he continues after clearing up his throat, "was that you were a constant gaping hole, a maelstrom. And you were dragging me,day by day, calling me to join you. After some time, it was easier to kill myself than it was to stay alive. I don't think I would have made it for a long time". _How long can one live without a heart?_

   "What kept you going?"

   "I honestly don't know." He gritts his teeth and subconsciously touches the bruises and cuts on his hands.

   "Hey" she says and warily touches his right hand, careful not to cause him any pain, "I am here. The wounds will heal, and I'll pick up Clyde tomorrow." He closes his eyes and tries to prevent the tears from streaming down. Joan picks up his hand and places his palm on her chest. "I am breathing. My heart is beating. We are going to work everything out."

   He looks at her, and a wisp of smile is drawn on his face.

   "Just..just promise me one thing. Never ever do this again."

   "I promise."

   They sat together, the one next to the other and watched as the sun shook hands with the horizon. They watched as the large, glowing sphere rose slowly, growing more vivid as the time passed by.

   Perhaps _this_ is what kept him going after all,he muses to himself. Moments like this, moments of absolute clarity. Moments when he could _feel_ rather than _think._

   And only then, when he turned and looked at her, was he absolutely certain he was not dreaming. Because he could see her eyelids flutter, her beautiful freckles rest on her face like stars dotting the night sky, her lips so red and soft, as if they were sealed by a kiss.

  
   " _I am the god that comes down from the heavens to earth and makes of the earth a heaven!"_

   He closes his eyes, leans back to his chair and squeezes her hand. She'll shut the voices in his head, she'll scare his demons away, she'll heal his wounds. _She's done it before after all._

   _"I am love! Love!"_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is how I imagined Sherlock's reaction. I thought he'd be angry and confused initially, but he'd try to be rational as he always does.  
> The voices in Sherlock's head is from an aria, La mamma morta(they killed my mother) from the opera Andrea Chénier by Umberto Giordano. I found that the libretto fit perfectly for Joan so I used it.  
> Please, please let me know what you think or if you imagined their reunion in any different way!  
> I hope I didn't make many mistakes(English is not my mother language.)  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
